Labelling machines are known that are designed for the application on containers of labels printed on a continuous film that is wound in the form of a reel.
Such machines comprise a rotating carousel provided with supporting plates for the individual containers, adapted to turn the containers about their own axis, and the continuous film that unwinds from the reel arrives, after being passed through several devices that ensure its alignment and correct tension, at a rotating drum provided with blades which is adapted to receive and retain, so that it clings to its own surface, the film in order to cut the labels and bring the individual labels, separated after cutting, into contact with corresponding containers supported by the carousel. The rotating drum is called “cutting and transfer drum”.
Such machines suffer a lack of functional flexibility because they can function correctly only if they are used to operate on labels that have a length proximate to an optimal length that coincides substantially with the distance between two contiguous blades on the cutting and transfer drum, which is called the “pitch”; only in this case are the containers designed to receive the labels imparted a rotation speed about their own axis which first and foremost does not cause problems of stability for the containers which feature increasingly lower characteristics of resilience, and also ensures a good quality of tack of the label.